


Shooting People for Their Cars

by angelgazing



Category: House M.D.
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-24
Updated: 2010-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-07 12:53:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelgazing/pseuds/angelgazing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>House, Wilson, a weird case, and the hospital cafeteria.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shooting People for Their Cars

"Interesting," Wilson says, and pokes at House's arm.

"_Ow_," House says, because he doesn't want Wilson to start thinking he's stoic about his pain or anything. "Is this how you treat your patients? With the bedside manner of a four-year-old boy?"

Wilson grins, and maybe, _maybe_ House can see how he'd find that funny. Maybe. If his arm didn't feel kind of like it was going to fall off. And not even for the reason his father always told him it would. "What'd you do?" Wilson asks, like he's pretending to be a real doctor now. "Was it the hookers? Tell me it was the hookers."

"You want to see me in handcuffs, all you have to do is ask." House looks away from _San Andreas_ long enough to raise his eyebrow at Wilson. Or almost long enough. He's running from the police and that requires attention.

"Or call the cops. How many patients have you dosed against their will this week?"

"Just the one," House says, and isn't half as defensive as he meant to be. He's pretty sure Wilson bought this game for a reason. "Of course, if you _do_ call the cops, you'd just have to go and bail me out and then I'd have to leave the state just to prove a point." House sighs dramatically, and shoots an innocent bystander for their car. "And you know how I hate to travel."

Wilson laughs, like he thinks House might be joking but isn't sure, and slides down a little further on the couch. His socked feet come dangerously close to knocking hours old congealed curry onto House's carpet. "I don't know, I could just not pay the bail. Save some cash and then let you sit there for a while. Hey! Maybe you could find a new best friend!"

"So you could go home to your wife?"

Wilson bumps their knees together accidentally, and pokes at the bruise on House's arm again.

"_Ow_."

"Does that hurt?" he asks, innocently.

\---

"My stool is bloody."

House closes his eyes, hand on the doorknob, seconds away from freedom, and cringes. "And you didn't think maybe this was something to mention before?" Sadly, when he opens his eyes again, she's still there.

Patient in Exam One—otherwise known as Doris the Unibrowed Lunch Lady—shrugs, and looks at her shoes, embarrassed. She twists the end of her hairnet in her fingers. "I just—"

"Didn't think it was information I needed to have. No, no, I understand. Of course. You spend so much time around doctors you might as well be one yourself." He picks her chart back up again, regretfully, and makes a note.

"D-Do you know what it could be?"

"No idea," House says, with enough forced cheer to snap her head up. "What with all your other symptoms it could be almost anything! Have to run some tests to be sure."

"I really need to get back to work—"

"For my own safety, I'm going to recommend that you _not_. Say what you will, but I'm not a big fan of spreading things in the hospital unless it's thighs."

\---

Wilson blinks, and stops stabbing at his slightly limp lettuce. "You know, your lunch conversation really just never fails to amaze me." He drops his fork onto his plate.

House smirks and steals a tomato. His fries are soggy. "Why do we still eat in the cafeteria?"

"Because you act like you're in grade school and dammit you should be forced to eat like it as well!" Wilson bangs the side of his fist lightly on the table, and then rolls his eyes. "We're doctors, we're very busy. We don't have time to run all over town for silly things like _lunch_."

"It's because you can't stand to miss your soaps, isn't it?"

Wilson steals a bite of House's toxic-green lime jello and makes a face. "Yeah, that's it exactly."

\---

"Have we ever discussed the possibility that you enjoy pain?" Wilson asks, all but falling onto House's couch. He knocks the Game Cube control from House's hand with his thigh, and presses a kitchen towel to House's face.

"Have we ever discussed the possibility that you enjoy the idea of me enjoying pain?" House replies, head tilted toward the ceiling. It comes out sounding like he's got the largest head cold that mankind has ever encountered.

"You just don't like the idea of me confusing you with Chase." Wilson scoffs, but has his legs under him on the couch next to House, one arm along the back, like he's afraid House has lost his mind and his medical training and will suddenly lean forward so he can bleed to death.

"I think you broke my nose."

"I didn't _touch_ your nose."

"Oh, but you wanted to," House accuses. He points at Wilson and his fingertips are bloody. All he can taste is that thick, old pennies metal tang and it makes him want to gag. His stomach lurches dangerously. "Oh," he repeats, because Wilson looks worried and he's never liked that look on Wilson, "you _wanted to_."

\---

"What happened to you?" Cameron asks, first thing, jumping to her feet so fast her chair rolls backwards.

"Bar fight?" Chase suggests, and sounds bored enough that House thinks he might just have to start trying to respect him.

"Wilson finally decide to let you have it?"

Wilson, hands planted firmly on his hips in his _I am a doctor and you will take me seriously_ pose, is at House's elbow, trying to glare. The pose doesn't work well without the lab coat, and really, the glare never works. House knows for a fact that Wilson's got a couple of patients under the age of three who laugh when he looks at them that way.

"Are you okay?" Cameron asks, and sounds so concerned that House almost cringes. She goes to touch his face and Wilson stops her, waving his hands in a way that, really, just _screams_ panic. Well, panic and fey. It's really a toss-up as to which it screams louder.

"Don't," Wilson warns, "the slightest pressure will only set it off again."

"If that's a euphemism," Foreman mutters, "please never tell me."

"He's so jealous," House says, wistfully, sitting down in Cameron's now vacant chair, head tilted toward Foreman in a way that just makes his sinuses _ache_. "Doesn't like it when other people touch me."

"My sympathy for your mother grows with every day I know you." Wilson sighs, hands returning to his (girlish) hips. "Now, you've come, you've stirred up their… sympathy. Time for the clinic."

"Cuddy's going to _let him_ do clinic hours looking like that?" Chase asks, because he's tactless when the situation doesn't call for it at all. He pushes at the purple bruise on House's cheek with his thumb and House tries to remember if Stacy ever mentioned the laws of justifiable homicide.

"Mom's making me take blood tests," House says, in the same tone of voice he uses for things like _Cuddy, your breasts look amazing today_. "Obviously," he adds, because he's a very smart man who knows the limitations of those below him and chimpanzees on the IQ scale, "someone is poisoning me."

"Gee, wherever will we find a list of suspects?" Foreman asks, and goes back to the business section and his jelly donut.

\---

"This is ridiculous." Cuddy crosses her arms in front of her, and House is almost certain that she just does it for the eyeful of cleavage it gives. He's not looking too closely though, because her dress is a shade of yellow that is painful to his retinas. "Why would—"

Wilson coughs, softly, into his hand.

"Right," Cuddy says, correcting herself before she even finishes the sentence. "But you—" She stops, sighs, and pinches the bridge of her nose. House can't do that without needing a blood transfusion at this point, if Chase can be trusted to run tests properly.

And that's pretty much all Chase can be trusted to do.

House smirks, fingers steepled under his chin, elbows resting on the arms of Cuddy's Administrator chair.

"You don't have to be so _cheerful_ about it," Cuddy snaps, and looks like she might hit him just to see if it finishes him off.

The scary thing is that House is fairly certain she wouldn't be held responsible for his death. It'd be very Agatha Christie and dramatic. Stacy would probably defend her.

Wilson holds his hands up. "Can we just—"

"Lunch Lady Unibrow a.k.a. Patient in Exam One," House says, "in the cafeteria, with the Warfarin and the lime jello."

"How do you—"

"It explains her symptoms and mine. Plus, Wilson's got a bruise on his thigh."

"I really hate you," Wilson says, and presses his thumb against his temple.

"Okay." Cuddy's jaw is hanging open, slightly, her _I believe you but I don't want to_ look. "Just… Never explain any of that to me."


End file.
